


Broken Bones + Begging + Left Behind

by saintsurvivor



Series: Tumblr + Whump + MacGyver + Drabbles [2]
Category: MacGyver (TV 2016)
Genre: Angus MacGyver (MacGyver TV 2016) Whump, Begging, Broken Bones, Gen, Hurt Angus Macgyver (Macgyver 2016), Hurt Jack Dalton (MacGyver TV 2016), Implied/Referenced Torture, Jack Dalton (MacGyver TV 2016) Whump, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Pre-Canon, Prompt Fill, Protective Jack Dalton (MacGyver 2016)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-23
Updated: 2021-01-23
Packaged: 2021-03-14 21:27:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28927308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saintsurvivor/pseuds/saintsurvivor
Summary: “Now, Iknowthat’s them blows to the heads talkin’, because I’m pretty sure I didn’t just hear my partner say to leave himthe fuck behind!” It’s angry, angry and harsh andpained.
Relationships: Jack Dalton & Angus MacGyver (MacGyver TV 2016)
Series: Tumblr + Whump + MacGyver + Drabbles [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2119845
Comments: 6
Kudos: 74





	Broken Bones + Begging + Left Behind

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ConsultingJedi221b](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ConsultingJedi221b/gifts).



Mac’s broken bones before. He’s not exceedingly clumsy, but whilst cuts and bruises are a warriors lost, broken bones and concussions seem to be a spies lot, especially ones that deal with explosions and under the table incidents that DXS do. Never mind the fact that he’d broken several fingers and ribs whilst back downrange, had barely been able to stoop when things had gone wrong so spectacular and Al had been less ... _well_ , had been less Al and more parts of Al.

But human minds aren’t designed to remember pain, not _really_ , even ones that are eidectic memory. The neurons remember it, but you forget what caused it, what made your heart stammer, what made your lungs seize, what made you want to jackknife up from your bed in the middle of the night, face wet with tears and blood beneath your nails because you’ve scratched your throat raw. You only remember it when it’s happening again, when you’ve felt that loss, that break.

Mac’s good at compartmentalization. Too well, often times. Jack doesn’t quite understand, not really though he tries, just how afraid Mac is, how afraid he is that if he even begins to open those tiny little boxes, meticulously labelled and stored away in the shelf of his mind, that he might not ever get them back closed. Everything he doesn’t, _can’t_ deal with, handle. Everything he wishes would be wiped clear like the last equation of the white board by the eraser. But it isn’t that easy.

Maybe that’s why he can’t help it, why he leans so easily upon Jack, despite Jack no doubt hurting just as much as he does. Broken bones and concussions are a spies lot, but Mac thinks that kidnappings and hurt are a MacGyver and Dalton special, and wishes that it wasn’t. Wonder sometimes, in the back of his mind just how much Jack regrets meeting him. Wonders if Jack wishes he’d walked away at the end of his original tour and had left a stubborn bomb nerd in the sand of Afghanistan. Wonders how long he’d have lived; it’s a question he likes to ask himself, especially now, after missions, or when he and Jack are traipsing back to exfil after things have gone to shit.

Thinks he knows the answers, but always swallows the question and the answer, swallows the pennies he can taste too, doesn’t want to turn around and accidentally spit it out on Jack. Jack, whose already bloodied, bruised and aching. He’s got probable fractured ribs, but he can’t rest because he has to help haul Mac’s stupid, incapable ass out of the fire. He can’t keep doing this, not to his partner, not to _Jack_.

His left leg buckles, fire lancing up his shin to his thigh, spreading through his hip. his ankle twists further, and he only just manages to avoid bringing Jack down with him by twisting and ducking, knows that Jack’s ribs can’t take the strain and Jack’s reflexes would have him letting go. The ground is hard and cold, he can already feel the bruises forming over bruises, wonders if he’ll have the entirety of their kidnapping marked out on his skin like the world’s most fucked up map. Wonders if he’ll be able to read all the pit stops and roads, _he’s where they first captured us, here’s where they fractured Jack’s ribs up after a failed escape attempt, here’s where they almost waterboarded me, here’s where they shattered my shin with a hammer because I called someone an asshole and Jack punched their lights out-_

A frantic hand tucks beneath his armpit, tries to get him up, clamps down on his instinctive cries, blinks reflexively in place of the full body flinch he wants to give.

“C’mon man, we gotta hustle, I think they’re right behind,” Jack crouches as best he can, tries to get his shoulder jammed underneath Mac’s, tries to haul him up through sheer force of strength. A wheezing grunt escapes, pained. God, Mac is so selfish. “Get _up_ , hoss, don’t do this to me, now.”

“You gotta go, Jack,” He says, looks Jack in the face, sees the wide, pain lined eyes, the grit of his teeth. He’s in so much pain, Jack is, exhausted to his very bones, beaten and bloodied. He doesn’t deserve this. “You, you need to _leave_.”

Jack pauses for a single moment, his arm around Mac’s waist _tightens_ , leaves Mac breathless, dizzy, with breathlessness and pain. Jack loosens immediately, but that rare look of anger doesn’t. Seems to only grow deeper.

“What the _fuck_ did you just say?” Jack far enough growls it, anger and pain, his eyes flash, he looks furious. Furious enough to hurt, to break, to punch. He does neither, only look at Mac like Mac’s said something so stupid, so out of far left field that it doesn’t even compute, as if Jack hasn’t had the same thoughts.

“Just _go_ , Jack!” Mac hisses, insists, tries to shove himself backwards out of Jack’s grip, manages to break it, only to immediately miss it. He’s so fucking _selfish_. “Look, I’m just weighin’ you down, at this point, baggage, _dead fuckin’ weight_ , you know this, man! You gotta go!”

“Now, I _know_ that’s them blows to the heads talkin’, because I’m pretty sure I didn’t just hear my partner say to leave him the _fuck behind!”_ It’s angry, angry and harsh and _pained_. An edge to it that has Mac’s back straightening, a shiver roiling down his spine, something pooling in his gut that he hasn’t paid attention to for the longest of times, because like Al used to say, _it isn’t the bomb that’s going to kill you, it’s the emotions_.

“Jack, please,” He tries to plead, can hear the shouts getting closer, the bark of angry shouting, he can’t let Jack be taken, not again, not when it was Mac that got them into this. “Please, just, _go_ , already! They won’t be able to keep up with you. I can distract them-”

“Boy, are you _stupid?”_ Jack hisses, and that seems to be the last straw. He grits his teeth, face turning red, hand shaking from where he’s tucked it up around Mac’s waist, _hauling_ him up. Mac barely gets his feet beneath him, before Jack is fairly enough marching him forward, eyebrows knitted together, eyes flashing.

“ _Jack_.” Mac hisses, pleads, begs. He’s got no chance but to go _forward_ , pain sunfire hot, chemistry fire burning. He’s sick to his stomach, swallows down the bile. Every foot forward is agony, gut punch deep.

“No, Mac.” Jack grits out. He’s sweating, red faced. His ribs seem to creak with every movement, but he’s got Mac locked too tightly against him for Mac to do anything. They step wrong and Mac lets out a thin yelp. Jack doesn’t even flinch, only grabs the arm he forced Mac to throw around his shoulder further over, presses the swell of his thumb harder over the wrist pulse point. “ _No_ , Mac, I ain’t leavin’ you. You know why? Because you’re a fuckin’ stubborn ass of a kid who I still want to punch sometimes and you’ve got the shittiest set of emotions I’ve ever seen and I mean that, I’ve dealt with Deacon and that guy is a hot mess, but fuckin’ _Christ_ , Mac, telling me to leave you behind?”

Something seems to have rattled loose inside of him, something hurt and vicious. Mac falls silent, keeps his hurt noises locked behind his teeth.

“We’re both gettin’ outta here, hoss, I don’t care what that stupid brain a’ yours is saying, and I swear to High Heaven that if you ever ask me to leave you behind, I will knock you on your skinny ass and _drag_ you there, do you get me? ‘ _Baggage, dead weight’-”_ Jack scoffs, literally hauls Mac up over a mound of rocks; his anger seems to be the only thing keeping him going. “Biggest crock a’ shit I’ve ever heard, I’ll tell you what Mackie, if i ever meet that pops a’ yours I’m gonna be beltin’ him so hard I swear-”

“Jack,” Mac says, soft, gentle. Something swells up inside of him, warm, cosy, like he’s just slipped into a hot bath. Even the fiery hot pain of his broken leg seems to have been soothed. “Thank you.”

 _"Thank you_ , he says,” Jack’s words sound angry, but his tone is soft. His fingers tap something out in morse code against the shiver of Mac’s ribs. something that spells _i love you_. “Just never ask me to leave you behind kiddo, I can’t. You go kaboom, I go kaboom, got me?”

“You go kaboom, I go kaboom.” Mac echos softly, wondrously, _hopefully_.


End file.
